Wroclaw self-guided walking tour: Ostrow Tumski and the lamplighter

Leave the Market Square by its north side and head for University Square and its 1904 fountain of a young swordsman.⁹ Follow the river east past the Ossolineum to the Market Hall, then cross the Sand Bridge onto Sand Island.¹⁴ Stay on the island's riverside promenade until Tumski Bridge, with the cathedral's twin towers ahead of you.¹⁰ This is the prettiest approach, and it is flat all the way.

Look for small things on the boulevard. A bronze model of the city's waterways lets blind and visually impaired visitors trace the course of the river with their hands.¹⁵ The Oder Washer, the dwarf of the flood legend, works at the water's edge.¹⁶ The boulevard itself has its own memory: in 1997 hundreds of residents built defences here to save the University Library's most valuable collections from the flood.¹⁷

Sand Island holds 4 dwarfs, the city's portal says, so children can count them on the way.¹⁸ At the end of the boulevard, step onto Tumski Bridge. From there the route is simple: walk straight along Katedralna Street to the cathedral, detour left to the Holy Cross church and the botanical garden, then loop back past the archbishop's palace and St Giles. This is a self walking tour of Wroclaw that never needs a map once you are on the island.

The Cathedral of St John the Baptist dominates the island. Historians count the present building as the fourth on the site, raised around the turn of the 13th and 14th centuries.³⁵ A fire in 1540 destroyed its roof, bells and tower helmet, and later bishops added Baroque chapels; there are 21 chapels in all.^36,37 The silver altar of Bishop Andreas Jerin dates from 1591, and it cost as much as a medium-sized town did at the time.³⁸

In the siege of Festung Breslau in spring 1945 the cathedral was 70 percent destroyed.³⁹ Rebuilding made it usable by 1951, but the new tower helmets only went up in the 1990s.⁴⁰ It measures 98 meters long and 44.5 meters wide.⁴¹ Look at the south wall of the tower for the stone face of a terrified man: legend says a rejected suitor who set fire to a house was trapped there for ever.⁴²

Entry to the cathedral itself is free; you pay only for the tower terrace, the Baroque chapels and a missionary exhibition.¹³ The tower, reached by elevator and stairs, gives a view from 97 m.^43,3 Tickets are PLN 25 normal and PLN 20 reduced, with reductions for children over 6, young people up to 25 and seniors from 60.^4,44 Visits during services are not allowed, and men are asked to remove their hats.^23,34

Ostrow Tumski keeps a tradition that is rare anywhere. As the sun goes down, a lamplighter in a black cape and a black top hat walks the island lighting the gas lanterns by hand.⁵ Look for him by the cathedral, the archbishop's palace and Tumski Bridge shortly before dusk; he returns in the morning to put the lanterns out.²⁸ The city's portal says these gas lanterns are unique in Poland.⁵⁰

Gas lighting reached Wroclaw's streets in the middle of the 19th century, and on the island the tradition of lighting the lamps by hand continues today.⁵¹ His working hours depend on the season, so timing is everything.³³ Find out when the sun sets on the day of your visit, reach Tumski Bridge a little earlier, then walk slowly toward the cathedral as the lamps come on behind you.

That makes the best time of day for this walk clear: late afternoon into dusk. In summer that means a late evening, in winter a late afternoon, when the island is quiet and the lamps glow against an early dark sky. Mornings are good too, for empty lanes and soft light on the cathedral front. Midday is the least atmospheric, but it is the time to climb the tower, which closes in the afternoon, long before a summer sunset.^24,27